He's the only one who understands
by FangirlCrafter
Summary: Most people think i'm crazy, i participated in the games, I went crazy when I won they think I'm retarded, well I'm not. It's not my fault I was reaped! I didn't know what to do either but i won and I am never going back so I put up a wall I didn't want anyone to talk to me. That was until I met Finnick Odair.
1. Chapter 1

**C** **HAPTER 1**

It's funny, I used to be the one people went to when they felt sad. But when I felt sad no one knew. After the games, I asked for help and cried, I've done it all before, but nobody helped. They didn't understand. Neither did I.

After the games people said I went crazy. They don't talk to me either, they think I'm nuts! Well, I'm not. It's not my fault I was reaped! I didn't know what to do. But I won and I am never going back! I will show them, one day.

He doesn't think I'm crazy though, he talks to me, and better yet he talks to me like I am a normal human being! I can see something in him, something others don't, he's sad. How could the boy who always smiles, hurt so much, what could make him so sad? When you see him you can't see the scars he holds, they aren't apparent, they don't show on his skin or his moods. He doesn't let it show. Not anymore. But when I look into his eyes I can see the scars the games left on him. I can see them bright and clear. They shouldn't be there. Someone like him shouldn't have to have gone through that!

Someone like him shouldn't have gone through what I did. But he shouldn't have to hide it either.

The first day I met Finnick Odair, I fell in love. I mean _All_ the girls fell in love with him, because he is so ' _hot'_. But he's not, well I would be lying if i said I didn't like the way he looked, but I mean _I_ have seen better, so I don't know what all the fuss is about. But when I fell in love it was real. When I first looked into his sea green eyes, they filled with something, something I can't put a name on. I like to think of it as love, but I know it will never be, how could a boy that amazing fall in love with a girl like me, poor and 'mad'. It would never be.

I don't like the other girls talking to him, it's funny cause they think they have a chance, well they don't. It still bothers me though.

I don't know why he hasn't asked one of them out yet though. He could have any girl he wanted at the click of a finger. But he doesn't do it. Maybe he already loves someone, just that someone doesn't _show_ an interest. Maybe he is waiting until they do. I don't know, I guess I should stop worrying about it. It's not me and there's nothing I can do to change that. Even if I really wanted to.

"Annie." A voice comes from down the stairs.

"Yes." I call back.

"Honey you must come watch this…." Her voice trails off.

"What is it?"

"President snow is announcing the change for the quarter quell."

Oh, I forgot that it was the quarter quell. I knew the reaping was tomorrow, but I didn't realise it was the quarter quell.

"Coming." I reply, my voice shaky.

I pad down the stairs and flop onto the chair next to mum.

"Hey." I whisper.

"Hey."

Then I focus in on the anthem plays, and my throat tightens with revulsion as President Snow takes the stage. He's followed by a young boy dressed in a white suit, holding a simple wooden box. The anthem ends, and President Snow begins to speak, to remind us all of the Dark Days from which the Hunger Games were born. When the laws for the Games were laid out, they dictated that every twenty-five years the anniversary would be marked by a Quarter Quell. It would call for a glorified version of the Games to make fresh the memory of those killed by the districts' rebellion.

These words could not be more pointed, since I suspect several districts are rebelling right now, since we had two victors last year.

President Snow goes on to tell us what happened in the previous Quarter Quells. "On the twenty-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that their children were dying because of their choice to initiate violence, every district was made to hold an election and vote on the tributes who would represent it."

I wonder how that would have felt. Picking the kids who had to go. It is worse, I think, to be turned over by your own neighbors than have your name drawn from the reaping ball.

"On the fiftieth anniversary," the president continues, "as a reminder that two rebels died for each Capitol citizen, every district was required to send twice as many tributes."

I imagine facing a field of forty-seven instead of twenty-three. Worse odds, less hope, and ultimately more dead kids.

"And now we honor our third Quarter Quell," says the president. The little boy in white steps forward, holding out the box as he opens the lid. We can see the tidy, upright rows of yellowed envelopes. Whoever devised the Quarter Quell system had prepared for centuries of Hunger Games. The president removes an envelope clearly marked with a 75. He runs his finger under the flap and pulls out a small square of paper. Without hesitation, he reads, "On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors."

My mother gives a faint shriek, but I feel more like the people I see in the crowd on television. Slightly baffled. What does it mean? Existing pool of victors?


	2. Chapter 2

**C** **HAPTER 2**

My body reacts before my mind does and I'm running out the door, across the lawns of the Victor's Village, into the dark beyond. Moisture from the sodden ground soaks my socks and I'm aware of the sharp bite of the wind, but I don't stop. Where? Where to go?

The next thing I know I'm on my hands and knees in the cellar of one of the empty houses in the Victor's Village. Faint shafts of moonlight come in through the window wells above my head. I'm cold and wet and winded, but my escape attempt has done nothing to subdue the hysteria rising up inside me. It will drown me unless it's released. I ball up the front of my shirt, stuff it into my mouth, and begin to scream. How long this continues, I don't know. But when I stop, my voice is almost gone.

I curl up on my side and stare at the patches of moonlight on the cement floor. Back in the arena. Back in the place of nightmares. That's where I am going. I have to admit I didn't see it coming. Never that I myself would have to be a player in the Games again. Why? Because there's no precedent for it. Victors are out of the reaping for life. That's the deal if you win. Until now.

There's some kind of sheeting, the kind they put down when they paint. I pull it over me like a blanket. In the distance, someone is calling my name. But at the moment, I excuse myself from thinking about even those I love most. I think only of me. And what lies ahead.

The sheeting is stiff but holds warmth. My muscles relax, my heart rate slows. I see the wooden box in the little boy's hands, President Snow drawing out the yellowed envelope. Is it possible that this was really the Quarter Quell written down seventy-five years ago? It seems unlikely. It's just too perfect an answer for the troubles that face the Capitol today.

I hear President Snow's voice in my head. "On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest among them cannot overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors."

Yes, victors are our strongest. They're the ones who survived the arena and slipped the noose of poverty that strangles the rest of us. They, or should I say we, are the very embodiment of hope where there is no hope. And now twenty-three of us will be killed to show how even that hope was an illusion.

I'm glad I won that year. Otherwise I'd know all the other victors, not just because I see them on television but because they're guests at every Games. Even if they're not mentoring most of them do return to the Capitol each year for the event. I think a lot of them are friends. Whereas the only friend I'll have to worry about killing will be Finnick. Mags can't go into the games again any way if she is reaped I will have to volunteer, she doesn't deserve to die like that, not poor old mags.

I sit straight up, throwing off the sheeting. What just went through my mind? There's no situation in which I would ever kill Finnick. But he will be in the arena with me, and that's a fact.

I stumble around the cellar, looking for an exit. How did I even get into this place? I feel my way up the steps to the kitchen and see the glass window in the door has been shattered. Must be why my hand seems to be bleeding. I hurry back into the night and head straight to Finnick's house. He's sitting alone at the kitchen table, with his head in his hands. He doesn't deserve to die like that either.

"Finnick?" I say panting.

He turns and looks up at me in shock.

"Oh, Annie, what did we do to deserve this?" He asks his eyes threatening to spill over with tears.

"Come here." He says opening his arms wide for me. I stumble over and he wraps his arms around me and I do the same to him. His strong arms wrapped around me makes me feel safe, I never want to leave his embrace. I sob into his shirt and he rubs comforting circles in my back as I cry. I am thankful to have him in my life. I know he will never love me but what's to say we can't help each other through this? Through the terrors of another arena?

He breaks off the hug and leaves us staring into each others eyes. I give him a weak smile and he returns it and brushes a loose hair off of my face and tucks it away behind my ear.

"Come on." He says standing up and heading over to the couch. He sits down and pats the empty space beside him. I sit down next to him and he wraps his arms around me. We sit this way until we fall asleep in each others arms.

 **PLEASE REVIEW WITH IDEAS FOR THE STORY LATER ON!**

 **XX**

 **LOTS OF LOVE**

 **-VALKETCHEREVERLARKPRIOR!**

 **P.S. GOTTA LOVE CAPS!**


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